Art of War Meets Genesis: Know Yourself and Enemy

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle” 
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Special Edition


The truths and strategies presented in The Art of War  hold true for the spiritual warfare that the Church Militant now faces.  To know who we are we need the data from Divine revelation.  The book on Genesis starts to answer the question of who we are, our place in the universe, where we came from, and it points to where we are going.

God created mankind in his image;

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27)

To be made in the image of God means that we have intrinsic worth and dignity.  Practically speaking it means that like God we have an intellect.  We can know reality but in a limited way.  It also means that like God we have free will.  It means that like God we can create.  Putting all these things together it means that like God we can love.  God is love (1 John 4:8).  Love in this context is not fundamentally an emotion.  It is possible to love and not have good feelings.  Love means to want what is best for the other and to do it.   To win the war we need to be about love.